Apr. 7, 2003 - The Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata) has decided to go ahead with its signature annual conference in Bali next week, Sars and the war in Iraq notwithstanding. 

Though the final attendance is expected to be between 600 and 700, well short of the 900-950 budgeted, the decision to remain on track is intended to send a clear signal to the global travel industry that the business of travel must go on. 

"After a careful weighing of all the hard evidence, the emotive and moral issues, the qualitative and quantitative concerns about attendance, the prevailing security, liability and health aspects, the management group reached the unanimous conclusion that, based on the facts available to us today, the conference should proceed as planned," Peter de Jong, head of the Bangkok-based association, said. 

"Should health or security circumstances dramatically change in the coming days, we shall, of course, immediately review our decision and keep all delegates closely advised." 

He said Pata "fully respected the understandable reasons which have caused a number of legitimate cancellations" from Hong Kong, China and other countries affected by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. 

"First and foremost in our deliberations and decision-making process has been, and will continue to be, the health and safety of our delegates." 

Nevertheless, Mr de Jong added, Pata had noted "the improved containment of the disease in most areas, the extraordinary measures that Indonesia and Bali have taken to ensure smooth entry procedures and capable, around-the-clock medical facilities, the absence of impending travel advisories from governments or health authorities, the confidence expressed by a majority of our delegates and the importance of this event to Bali, to our industry and our association. 

"All these reasons and others have compelled us to move ahead," he said. 

John Koldowski, managing director of the association's Strategic Intelligence Centre, said the decision was based on the same rationale that saw Pata go ahead with its Mekong Tourism Forum in Hanoi from March 28-30. 

"We knew there was going to be a problem but if the travel industry starts cancelling its events, it does not a send a good signal to either our members or the travellers," he said. 

Other Pata sources said it had been a tough call because of legal, moral and financial implications. The conference is its third-biggest revenue generator after membership dues and the Pata Travel Mart, to be held in Singapore this October. 

Former Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan is to be the keynote closing speaker at the conference and has confirmed his attendance. He is understood to be taking his family along as a show of support. 

Bali specifically needed the conference to generate business as well as indicate that it was recovering from the bomb blast last October. 

However, other events did not fare well. The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Tourism Working Group meeting in Pattaya and the Jones Lang Wootton Hotel Investment Conference in Singapore next week have both been postponed until further notice. 

In another development, the Sydney-based Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation said that Sars posed a more serious threat to the regional travel and tourism industry than the war in Iraq. 

"Worst affected is Hong Kong, where cancellations grow by the hour. Singapore and other destinations are suffering under the halo effect. As key transfer hubs, they are also showing a flow-on effect beyond their immediate point-to-point markets, as passengers are becoming reluctant to spend time in transit areas," said the centre's managing director Peter Harbison in a report last week. 

It said that the "apparently unprecedented step" taken by the World Health Organisation in issuing a travel advisory recommending against all but essential travel to Hong Kong and Guangdong province in China, plus travel advisories of varying strength issued by a number of governments like Thailand and medical insurers in some cases excluding Sars coverage are all having "a significant effect both in deterring immediate travel and in accelerating the notoriety of the issue". 

"Sars is clearly now fast becoming a much more serious issue, both from a health perspective and for travellers and the airlines. If the incidence of the disease spreads further over even another week or two, even the gloomiest of predictions for the airlines will be overshadowed," Mr Harbison said. 

He said until now the Iraq war-influenced slowdown had not been all bad news for the incumbent airlines and for some of the region's travel markets. 

"With many foreign operators reducing capacity substantially, the region's airlines received some softening of the wider impact. And even some destination markets have benefited from diversion of travel business into an area with a perceived lower risk area albeit still suffering downturns." 

Imtiaz Muqbil is executive editor of Travel Impact Newswire, an email-delivered feature and analysis service focusing on the Asia-Pacific travel industry.
 
 

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(c) 2003, Bangkok Post, Thailand. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.